January 11, 1998

Party FaithfulPat Robertson and Ralph Reed long for a return to a golden era, before modernity.

By DAVID GREENBERG

THE CHRISTIAN COALITION
Dreams of Restoration,
Demands for Recognition. By Justin Watson.
292 pp. New York:
St. Martin's Press. $35.

othing better captures the transformation of the 1.9-million-member Christian Coalition than the passing of its torch from Pat Robertson to Ralph Reed. The Bible Belt Robertson was a middle-aged clergyman who turned to politics, the Beltway Reed a young politico who got religion. Robertson, who subscribes to a biblical reading of history, has written of international conspiracies in thinly veiled anti-Semitic language. Reed, who has an Emory history Ph.D., apologized for the racism, anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism that evangelicals once displayed and courted blacks, Roman Catholics and Jews as members. When he took over in 1993, the nation's leading evangelical Protestant organization was clearly bidding for mainstream acceptance. His departure last spring ended an era.

In ''The Christian Coalition: Dreams of Restoration, Demands for Recognition,'' Justin Watson, who teaches religion at Florida State University, tells us that both Reed and Robertson have repeatedly disavowed the goal of establishing an American theocracy; that they have made welfare reform a pet issue; that in 1996 they helped Bob Dole beat back Pat Buchanan in the Republican primaries; and that their most strident critics include the religious conservatives Alan Keyes and Randall Terry. Jesus, it would seem, gets more praise in locker-room interviews than at coalition meetings.

But this book is no apologia. Though it has its flaws -- mainly a lack of depth (there is scant evidence that Watson did any interviews) and bad timing (he barely mentions the coalition's new leaders, Donald Hodel and Randy Tate) -- it exhibits the virtue of fairness. Watson recounts the coalition's run-ins with campaign finance rules. He describes what he generously labels Robertson's ''unusual'' ideas, like his plan to cancel all debts in a ''year of jubilee.'' Yet Watson argues, persuasively, that the coalition's moderate garb is not a disguise to mollify critics. Rather, it reflects an appreciation of the dress code required in a liberal democracy -- where Reed in particular sought to excel.

Reed had watched as blacks, women, homosexuals and the disabled parlayed victim status into political recognition, and he saw evangelicals as a similarly persecuted minority. Instead of turning persecution into paranoia, as Robertson has, he turned it into interest-group politics, seeking the spoils the other ostracized groups won. Instead of denouncing pluralism, he co-opted it.

At the same time, Reed and Robertson, Watson argues, have pursued another goal: the restoration of a Christian nation. Theirs is not the vision of the ''reconstructionist'' evangelicals, who want to run the Government according to biblical law. They see a return to a golden era, America before modernity, when evangelical Protestantism dominated and ''it would not occur to anyone to question the propriety of public school prayer . . . or the assertion that this is a Christian nation.''

BUT recognition presumes a diverse and tolerant society, and restoration seeks to replace it. Watson suggests that the Christian Coalition will eventually have to choose between these goals. I think not. Addressing a large public, it's not just Reed who plays down aspects of his Christianity that seem parochial; as a Presidential candidate in 1988, Robertson styled himself a conservative businessman, stressing low taxes and national defense. Speaking to the faithful, Reed, not just Robertson, plays up his piety; at a 1996 fund-raiser, Reed declaimed: ''We are Christians! And we honor and serve our God. We are not going to apologize for being Christian anymore.''

This dexterity has allowed the coalition to prosper. It can rally its members through promises of a Christian renewal. And it can fend off mainstream criticism by assuming the posture of the persecuted. Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed have pulled it off because they genuinely believe both things at the same time.